Big Brother UK getting bigger... and bigger...

[Blodrast]

Wasn't it CCTV in London that identified the neo nazi nailbomber and the July trainbombers ?
Then again they were people who didn't like their government and stood up .

Tribesy, I don't think anybody (here) claimed there can possibly be no benefit from them, ever, under any circumstances; one can find some silver lining even in genocide (uhm, I dunno, less pollution, more resources for the rest of us, whatever).
I think the point is that 1) the price we pay for having those is not worth the (quite unproved, so far) results/benefits; and 2) the official reason for setting those up was that they would reduce crime, etc. Apparently, they don't, so then if they don't do what the gov't claimed they would be useful for, then what's the point in having them ?


I'd like to point out that the crypto thing is not as irrelevant as it may seem. What's more interesting about it, and very much different from your run-of-the-mill law, is the fact that the burden of proof is NOT on the authorities this time (*); it's on you.
More precisely, a reasonable belief on their side that you do have the key is sufficient for them to charge you, UNLESS you can prove that you do not have it.
In other words: if you cannot prove that you do not have the key, you're screwed - they can put you in jail, and they don't have to prove anything - just have a reasonable belief that you do in fact have the key.
If you can prove that you do not have the key, then yes, they are required to actually prove the contrary before they can charge you with anything.


So, let's say you literally forgot your encryption key: too bad; you can end up in jail, because not providing it to the authorities is illegal now.

Some of the more obvious (and unbelievably ridiculous) effects/exploits are that if someone sends you something encrypted with a key and you don't actually know the key, you could get in trouble unless you can prove that you cannot possible have a key for that.

Also, other people pointed out that criminals get a very nice cop-out in this case, since if you're actually guilty of something, you can just refuse to turn over your key to the authorities and only spend up to 5 years in jail, whereas if you had handed over the key and they had decrypted your data (and found out that you're a terrorist/pedophile), you'd have faced a much worse sentence.

So, very very ironically, the law actually benefits PRECISELY the kind of people it claims it is aimed against.

[Tribesman]

Tribesy, I don't think anybody (here) claimed there can possibly be no benefit from them, ever, under any circumstances;

If they are "apperently no good for solving crime" thats a pretty definate claim isn't it .

Though what I find surprising is that people are raising the subject that the UK government have publicly announced the telephone thing yet don't seem to realise that they have been doing it for decades .
Bloody hell the even delayed the launch of the european communications satellites solely because Britian wanted to fit more monitoring equipment .

Though whats really funny is the criticism by people who supported domestic surveilance in their own country .

[Blodrast]

If they are "apperently no good for solving crime" thats a pretty definate claim isn't it .

Well, frankly, I don't really wanna go into semantics, but from what I remember from the article, the findings didn't necessarily point either way: in other words, the findings didn't indicate that the cameras help solve crime, but didn't indicate that they don't, either.

However, like I said, this is just semantics; as far as *I*'m concerned, if they can't prove that the damned things help solving crime (i.e., in my eyes, the burden of proof is on *them* to show that the cameras are helpful), then there is no reason for having the cameras.

Also, on semantics, what I meant by my previous post was that because of the laws of statistics, I'm absolutely convinced that there may be cases when they end up being useful. But if those cases are not statistically relevant, and/or if the benefit of solving those few cases is not greater than the negative consequences of having the cameras in place, then, again, the cameras are not justified.
That's what I was trying to say in my previous post. I'm not sure if I'd managed to express that clearly and coherently enough.

Though what I find surprising is that people are raising the subject that the UK government have publicly announced the telephone thing yet don't seem to realise that they have been doing it for decades .
Bloody hell the even delayed the launch of the european communications satellites solely because Britian wanted to fit more monitoring equipment .

Well, I guess this makes it worse because it kinda enshrines it into law. I mean, sure, everybody is aware that your phone calls aren't really yours, and they weren't private for many years now, but, up to now, you know, they needed a court order, they needed to jump through some hoops, and/or it wasn't even legal to do so. But now, it's out in the open - and I think that's the difference. And it is much worse, in my eyes, because now they can practice it on a larger scale and without worries about whistleblowers and the legislative giving them a hard time about it when they overstepped their bounds too much and made a booboo.

[Pannonian]

Well, frankly, I don't really wanna go into semantics, but from what I remember from the article, the findings didn't necessarily point either way: in other words, the findings didn't indicate that the cameras help solve crime, but didn't indicate that they don't, either.

However, like I said, this is just semantics; as far as *I*'m concerned, if they can't prove that the damned things help solving crime (i.e., in my eyes, the burden of proof is on *them* to show that the cameras are helpful), then there is no reason for having the cameras.

There is masses and masses of proof that cameras help solve crime. Where there is doubt, is whether or not cameras help deter crime. Nearly all the cameras that are installed are done so to try and do the latter. What they mostly end up doing, is doing the former.

One thing that doesn't seem to be in doubt is that cameras make most people feel safer. There is the contradiction between steadily falling crime rates and the steadily rising fear of crime. Cameras help address the latter, but there is considerable doubt whether or not they are responsible for the former.